Cuttack Municipal Corporation not to take fee from homeless to stay in night shelters

BHUBANESWAR: The Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) has decided not to take any user fee from homeless people who want to stay in the shelters of urban homeless (SUHs) in Cuttack city. It also announced that identity card will not be mandatory for the homeless people to stay in the shelters.
CMC deputy commissioner Shyama Sundar Sethy said this while appearing before the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) here on Thursday in response to a notice issued by the rights panel hearing a petition on plight of homeless people in Cuttack.
Rights activist and lawyer Biswapriya Kanungo and Bijay Kumar Panda had filed a petition before the OHRC on January 7 regarding CMC’s collection of user fee from homeless people. They had also alleged that the CMC made identity card mandatory to stay in the shelters.
The rights panel had issued notice to CMC commissioner and Cuttack collector to submit their reply on February 1. When the CMC did not submit its reply, the commission asked the CMC commissioner to personally appear before the commission on the issue on February 14.
Following this order, CMC deputy commissioner Sethy appeared before the commission on behalf of the commissioner and told the commission about their decision.
Petitioner Kanungo said, “According to the government guideline, the urban body should not charge any fee to homeless people without any income. However, it can collect user fee from the people with income source. But the CMC was arbitrarily collecting fee of Rs 20 from everybody.”
He said this order will immensely help the homeless people. “People who were staying under open sky with dogs can get shelter in the SUHs,” he added.